PBS To Sell 'Significant' Satellite Space to Educators

WASHINGTON--The Public Broadcasting Service plans to sell educators
"significant capacity" on a communications satellite scheduled to be
launched in 1993, an initiative that could severely undercut a rival
proposal to dedicate a satellite to educational use.

For some time, PBS has planned to make space available on
transponders it has purchased on Telstar 401--which is being built by
the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to replace an existing
satellite.

But a spokesman said late last month that the rapid refinement of a
technology known as digital compression will allow PBS to at least
quadruple the signal capacity of the transponders.

The new technology, which compresses the bandwidth of broadcasts so
that a satellite can simultaneously handle more at one time, also will
allow the Telstar to transmit both video signals and computer data.
Moreover, it can do so at approximately half the current $400-an hour
rate of conventional satellite transmissions, said Sandra H. Welch,
executive vice president of education for PBS.

And schools that purchase relatively inexpensive receiving dishes
called V.S.A.T.'s, or Very Small Aperture Terminals, will be able to
communicate directly with the satellite as well as with other users on
the ground.

PBS also plans to equip each of its 347 member stations with a
V.S.A.T. dish, which virtually any school will be able to access
through conventional telephone lines.

"For the first time, we're going to have a national infrastructure
for two-way, interactive distance learning," Ms. Welch said.

Challenge to EDSAT?

The PBS announcement potentially could preempt a proposal by the
EDSAT Institute--a private, nonprofit corporation based in
Washington-to create a national educational-telecommunications
authority that one day might oversee the operation of a satellite
dedicated to educational uses.

Throughout the summer, EDSAT held a series of regional meetings to
document the demand for access to existing and proposed satellite
transponders among educators and to drum up support for a national
consortium among distance-learning and educational broadcasters.

EDSAT hopes this fall to complete a business plan incorporating
several alternative methods of financing and operating a satellite
dedicated to educational use, thereby laying the groundwork for
developing a satellite-based "telecommunications highway" for
educators.

Addressing a regional meeting last month in Salt Lake City, Jack D.
Foster, Kentucky's secretary of education and humanities, who is
helping to direct the national campaign, said the project was expected
to reach a "make or break" point this month.

A decision to move forward could be announced by mid-October,
possibly during a teleconference linking the sites of the seven
regional meetings.

"This is an action project. This isn't another study," Mr. Foster
said. "We're here to do some business, if We Can."

While the PBS proposal would seem to obviate some of EDSAT's aims,
Shelly Weinstein, EDSAT's president, argued that industry exports and
educational broadcasters who spoke at the regional meetings were
divided on whether digital compression will actually reduce costs for
educational users.

She also said that the current lack of an industry wide standard for
digital compression could limit the universal application of the PBS
equipment.

"We know that the education sector, when it comes to technology, has
been taken down ill-begotten paths before," Ms. Weinstein said.

Use of Existing Satellites

The EDSAT initiative grew out of a notion championed by Gov. Wallace
G. Wilkinson of Kentucky and some of his colleagues during the 1989
national education summit to dedicate a satellite to educational
use.

Mr. Wilkinson later discussed the idea with President Bush, and
persuaded the National Governors' Association to support the concept
of"a cooperative effort between the federal government, the states, and
the private sector" to dedicate a satellite to educational and other
"public purpose" uses.

Mr. Wilkinson, under whose administration Kentucky issued satellite
dishes to every school in the state and spent $50 million to develop
educational-broadcasting studios, also persuaded EDSAT to perform a
feasibility study of the proposal.

But the short-term solutions that EDSAT appears to be considering
focus on acquiring guaranteed access to transponder time on existing
commercial satellites, rather than on building and launching a
satellite.

Successfully brokering and managing time on leased transponders will
help to demonstrate the strength and resilience of the market, EDSAT
spokesmen argue.

It could also encourage potential financial backers--including the
federal government--to help underwrite the approximately $170- million
price tag of building and launching an education satellite, they
added.

But Ms. Welch, who is familiar with the EDSAT initiative, was
skeptical that other entities could rival PBS's expertise in managing a
national information network. "At this stage, I just don't believe that
[EDSAT] could beat what we have to offer," Ms. Welch said. 'Fragmented
Market'

A study released by EDSAT last year argues that sufficient demand
exists nationwide among educational users at all levels to support
development of a dedicated satellite.

According to the study, the "highly fragmented market" for satellite
time includes at least 111 educational users, just 20 of whom it
expected to spend a total of $45.5 million to acquire satellite time
during the 1990-91 school year.

The firm further argues that because there is no centralized system
for purchasing satellite time, educational users often must pay higher
rates and accept whatever time satellite vendors are willing to sell
them.

Speaking at the Utah meeting, Ms. Weinstein argued that there is a
growing consensus among educational users to put "ourselves in the
position where we control" a satellite.

"If there's anything that we've picked up from these hearings, it's
that people want [to pay] a consistent rate" for transponder time, Ms.
Weinstein said.

But critics of the EDSAT proposal counter that new technologies-such
as those to be employed by PBS could vastly increase the capacity of
existing satellites and reduce any perceived shortages, thus increasing
competition and easing pressures to increase prices.

Other initiatives, such as "Galaxy Classroom," a pilot project by
the Hughes Aircraft Company to beam satellite programming into K-6
classrooms at no cost to taxpayers, could further complicate the
market.

And even though the new PBS satellite is not scheduled to become
operational for almost two years, Ms. Welch said that she already has
begun negotiations with educational broadcasters in several
states-including South Carolina, Nebraska, and Kentucky--to conduct
pilot projects that use the new technologies on the existing PBS
satellite.

Several Options

Meanwhile, in Baltimore last week, more than 300 distance- learning
and educational programmers gathered for the last of the regional EDSAT
forums. The meeting also drew representatives of PBS and of the
national teachers' unions and other groups.

The participants heard Mr. Foster of Kentucky lay out some short
term service options the group is considering.

Under one proposal, EDSAT would assume a loan on a satellite already
under construction by an unnamed vendor, but unneeded by the original
purchaser.

Mr. Foster said that EDSAT Officials seeking a federal guarantee for
that loan have bypassed members of the House and Senate education
committees, but have met with qualified success in discussions with key
members of the Congressional science and technology committees.

Under a second option, another unnamed vendor might donate to EDSAT
a satellite now under construction. A third vendor has discussed
allowing educational users to take over an existing lease on a
satellite that a corporation no longer wants to operate.

The regional meetings also served as a forum to discuss a previously
published proposal to establish a nonprofit governance beard as the
first step toward guaranteeing educational access to satellite
transponders.

The "National Education Telecommunications Organization," as it
would be called, is conceptualized as a membership organization of
distance-learning and educational broadcasters that each would have
equal rights to use programs transmitted over the common system.

The organization's board, composed of "nationally prominent"
political and technical authorities, would serve as an oversight body
for a separate corporation that would employ individuals with the
experience to operate the satellite.

Ms. Welch said that while many of EDSAT's concerns about access to
satellite time might be addressed by the PBS project, a scenario in
which the proposed N.E.T.o. would act as a broker to obtain time on the
PBS satellite for large numbers of small-scale users was possible.

Concerns about equitable access to satellite time were prominent at
the Utah meeting. Many participants argued that if time were to be
allotted only on the basis of which organizations could pay the most,
then the N.E.T.o. would serve no useful purpose.

"If this is going to be market-driven, we may as well fold this
meeting up," said John K. Hill, general manager of KLVX-TV, a PBS
affiliate in Las Vegas. "We can't play with those other kids back East;
we don't have the volume."

Vol. 11, Issue 01, Page 21

Published in Print: September 4, 1991, as PBS To Sell 'Significant' Satellite Space to Educators

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